January 18, 970: The Mice That Roared

On an island in the Rhine River near the German village of Bingen am Rhein, there’s a structure known as Mäuseturm, the Mouse Tower.  The tower was first erected by the Romans, and in 968 it was restored by Hatto II, the Archbishop of Mainz.  It has, if you choose to believe it, a curious history which features the untimely death of the Archbishop on January 18, 970.

Hatto was not one of Germany’s nicer guys. Aided by archers and crossbowmen, he used his tower to extract “tolls” from passing ships, all in all a lucrative sideline to his religious duties. He also filled his barns with grain in anticipation of a future rainy day which soon came in the form of a famine. The nearby peasants ran out of food and you know who was ready to sell it to them at prices they could not afford. Naturally, the peasants were not a happy lot, and Hatto got wind of a possible rebellion. Hatto assembled the peasants at his castle and promised to feed them.  He sent the hungry but now happy peasants to an empty barn to wait for the food he would bring.  But when Hatto and his servants arrived at the barn, they were not armed with food. Hatto ordered the barn doors locked, and immediately set the barn on fire. Hearing the screams from inside, Hatto was said to have remarked: “Hear the mice squeak!”

Hatto’s amusement was short-lived. When he returned to his castle, he was set upon by thousands of mice. With the mice in pursuit, Hatto fled the castle and crossed the river to his tower, in hopes that the mice would drown if they followed. They didn’t. They swarmed the island, gnawed their way through the tower door, and — well, as a poet described it:

They have whetted their teeth against the stones,

And now they pick the bishop’s bones;

They gnawed the flesh from every limb,

For they were sent to punish him!

The Kid’s Got Talent?

As the program began, the spinning of a wheel would determine the contestants’ order of appearance. As the wheel spun, Ted Mack would chant the magic words: “Round and round she goes, and where she stops nobody knows.” It was January 18, 1948, and The Original Amateur Hour, episode number one, was on the air. And each week, we would be informed how many episodes had aired. The final broadcast in 1970 was number 1,651.

Ted Mack brought the Amateur Hour to television from radio where it had been a fixture for over a decade under the command of Major Edward Bowes. Mack’s television version was one of only six shows to appear on all four major TV networks – ABC, CBS, NBC, and DuMont. (the others were The Arthur Murray Party; Down You Go; The Ernie Kovacs Show; Pantomime Quiz; and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet).

Contestants were often singers and other musicians, although acts included jugglers, tap dancers, baton twirlers, and such. The television audience voted for their favorites by postcard or by calling JUdson 6-7000. Winners returned for another appearance, and three-time winners became eligible for the annual championship and the chance to win a $2000 scholarship.

During 22 years on television, you might guess that the program would discover a throng of celebrities, but you’d be wrong. Gladys Knight, Ann-Margret, Irene Cara, and Tanya Tucker were a few of the handful of future stars. Pat Boone was a winner, but his appearances caused a bit of a tempest in a TV pot. After his winning appearances, it was discovered that he had appeared on the rival program Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts, and was therefore not an “amateur” singer. Boone was booted from the program, but his fame was already a given, and within a few years he was hosting his own variety show The Pat Boone Chevy Showroom (Ted Mack was never a guest).

Elvis Presley, on the other hand, was turned down for the show.